How To Eat Clean When You Have A Family

Smart And Sneaky Ways To Give Them The Nutrients They Need

Perhaps one of the most trying times to stick with your diet plan is when you have a family that you need to be cooking for.

It can be especially challenging if both your kids – not to mention your husband(!) are picky eaters and tend to turn their nose up at anything even semi-healthy that you make.

Feel like you’re on mission impossible?

While it definitely will be a challenge to eat healthier when you have a family, it can be done.

Let’s go over some tips to make it work.

Disguise Healthy Foods

First things first, consider disguising the healthy foods that you are preparing.

For instance, let’s say you’re going to prepare some pasta with spaghetti sauce.

First, consider swapping out the ground beef for ground turkey. Once it’s covered in the sauce, they’ll hardly know the difference.

Next, consider actually blending up some vegetables such as cauliflower, onions, carrots, or peppers right into the sauce.

Once blended, they won’t know they’re eating them but they’ll still be getting their nutrition.

Now, you can choose to make whole wheat pasta which is a bit cleaner for you, or alternatively, simply avoid using pasta entirely and simply place the sauce over rice if you prefer.

This way, all you need to make is one component of the meal that’s different for you.

The more you can try and convert your non-healthy recipes into cleaner ones without them noticing, the less complaining you’ll hear, plus, you’ll be giving them healthy food without them even realising it.

Once their palate starts to become more refined, you can then consider introducing new options that may be a little more ‘visibly’ healthy and slowly they may warm up to it.

Jazz It Up

Next, consider simple ways to liven up healthy dishes. For instance, serve a platter of raw veggies with the meal.

On the side, whip up a spinach dip. You don’t have to use the dip, but they’ll be far more likely to eat the veggies with it there.

Likewise, if preparing grilled chicken and they need something to enhance the taste, simply melt a slice of cheese over the chicken before serving.

These are just two examples of fast and easy ways to jazz up an otherwise healthy food and make it taste better.

Hiding some broccoli could be the only way they’ll eat it!

Still do try and keep their meal components as healthy as possible, but realise they may need a little additional ‘fixings’ to keep things as clean as possible.

Cook Easy-To-Assemble Meals

Finally, you’ll want to cook easy-to-assemble meals as often as you can.

This could be home made pizzas, tacos, or salads where they each load onto their dish what they want.

This way, everyone can essentially create their own, even though you are still eating the same meal.

It gives them the preference for exactly what they eat and you the control to ensure that you are maintaining your healthy diet.

So there you have a three quick ways to strive to eat clean despite having a family who isn’t so fond of eating clean.

If these three fail you, become a master of food prep for your own meals.

If you can prepare your own meals once or twice per week and have them ready to go in Tupperware containers, then you only have to worry about preparing meals for your family during the busy weeknights.